


are you my future or just an escape?

by RestlessWanderings



Series: never get to heaven on a night like this [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, HAROLD THEY'RE LESBIANS, Happy Ending, Hurt!Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), Mutual Pining, No beta we fall like Crowley, Pining, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sharing a Bed, Softness, Swearing, Yearning, cuddling for warmth, its angsty and yearning but it ends so soft i promise, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23223844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RestlessWanderings/pseuds/RestlessWanderings
Summary: She wants to kiss Crowley and the urge doesn’t scare her like she thought it would – maybe it’s something she’s wanted all along but hasn’t allowed herself to think about.A dangerous thing, an angel wanting.Even more dangerous for an angel to give in.or: aziraphale can't stop looking at crowley and overthinking everything(companion piece to 'the blinding look from me to you' but can 100% be read alone)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: never get to heaven on a night like this [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669786
Comments: 18
Kudos: 103





	are you my future or just an escape?

**Author's Note:**

> well. guess we know how i'm gonna spend this pandemic: willfully ignoring my mountains of schoolwork and instead writing fic
> 
> ....fuck, i really need to get work done
> 
> also this entire thing is based on 'those nights' by bastille, maybe now i'll finally be free of this song

_and i’ll be your rabbit in the headlights_

_we’ll never get to heaven_

_i’ll be your rabbit in the headlights_

_we’ll never get to heaven_

* * *

Adam and Eve stand before her with something glinting in their eyes – something fresh and new and unyielding, something that has their chins jutting out in defiance even as the tense lines of their shoulders broadcast their wariness for all to see. They look at her, gaze unflinching, and she knows without a shadow of a doubt that they will leave this place with or without her help.

She is left, in the aftermath, in the same place she began: a lonesome sentinel at the top of the Eastern Wall. This time, though, instead of holding her sword, she wrings her hands. The flickering flames of her sword draw her attention, and she watches with a miracle poised on her tongue as Adam and Eve stumble through the sand dunes into the path of an ambling lion.

Focused as she is, she almost misses the demon slithering up the wall. Between one blink and the next the demon is a woman, her wine-red curls shining in the sun. The demon’s gaze, gold and serpentine, meets hers and there is something about the way her eyes glitter in the sun that has Aziraphale’s heart skipping a beat.

Later she’ll remember their conversation. Later she will go through it with a fine-tooth comb, analyzing every syllable and twitch. But for now the demon’s wide-eyed gaze and hesitant smile has her enthralled. As the dark clouds roll in she tears her gaze away from the demon, tries to focus on Adam and Eve’s silhouettes, but it’s no use – the demon shuffles closer, glaring warily at the sky, and Aziraphale is lifting her wing before she registers the movement. Her feathers spread wide to give a more adequate shelter, and she refuses to look over as the demon shuffles further under her wing.

 _The rain could be Holy,_ she reasons, _and it’s not like standing is a sin._

Heat emanates from the demon beside her, sinking into her, and her stomach swoops as it drops to her feet. She bites the inside of her cheek, watching the demon from her peripherals.

 _I won’t get attached,_ she thinks, leaning slightly in the demon’s – _Crawly’s –_ direction. _It’s not like we’ll be running into each other, after all._

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She sees Crawly – after a century, maybe, but she’s still trying to figure out how the humans judge time - sprawled across the ground, watching intently as a lizard basks in the desert sun.

Aziraphale, hidden behind a rocky outcropping, watches Crawly and thinks _You have quite the sense of humor, God,_ because with as big as the world is surely more time would have passed since their last meeting.

For all of her worry about how to handle it – _Am I supposed to smite her? She’s not doing anything evil; surely I don’t walk up to her and smite her for no good reason. That would be rude and rather uncalled for, really. Do I ignore her? Again, that seems rude after our last meeting. Do I pretend not to see her? No, she’s a demon, she’ll see straight through that. Maybe I should –_ Crawly doesn’t notice her. She focuses, wholly and completely, on the lizard, golden eyes unblinking as she does so.

Aziraphale watches her, a frown on her face, a faint tingling on her skin signaling Crawly’s presence. Surely she would have sensed her by now. Is Crawly ignoring her? She shakes her head at the thought. Even with their brief interaction on the Wall, the demon doesn’t seem to be the type to ignore a friendly face.

Aziraphale blinks. A semi-friendly face. A slightly friendly face. A non-threatening, neutral face.

She bites the inside of her cheek. She could have been friendlier during their first meeting, she knows, but in her defense it was all around quite stressful.

The sun moves but the lizard doesn’t, so Crawly doesn’t, so Aziraphale doesn’t, and by the time the sun reaches its zenith Aziraphale is sitting on the dusty ground, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands as she observes. A raptor circles overhead in the cloudless sky and the lizard bolts, darting from its rock to a nearby burrow. Aziraphale raises her head, expecting Crawly to move, but she doesn’t. A frisson of unease trickles down her spine as she wrings her hands – had she missed something?

She squints, her gaze sweeping up and down Crawly’s prone figure, and sighs, her chest loosening.

The demon is asleep, basking in the sun, her head resting on her arms.

Aziraphale shakes her head. She should move, should find some humans and bless them, but the thought of leaving Crawly alone, vulnerable, and out in the open doesn’t sit well with her. It makes her downright anxious, actually, the thought of it, so she finds a more comfortable position and watches over the sleeping demon.

Crawly is her adversary, after all. She needs to keep an eye on her.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

They meet, of course. Again and again and again. For the first however many years they don’t talk to each other, Aziraphale keeping a resolute distance between them despite Crawly’s hopeful stare and hesitant wave. Again and again, Aziraphale catches glimpses of her across muddy streets and well-worn trade routes, across market squares and one-road villages.

Every once in awhile Crawly will make a move towards her and she’ll glare at the demon, turning and walking the other way, refusing to look back. They can’t be seen together. It’s bad enough Aziraphale hasn’t even attempted to smite Crawly. She doesn’t want to know what Heaven will do if they find out that she’s actually begun keeping tabs on Crawly, the half-truth always sitting on her tongue whenever Gabriel pops up because _She’s wily. I need to keep my eyes peeled, and all that._

But as the decades pass with no hint of reprimand from above, Aziraphale finds herself at a bit of a loss. Finds herself returning Crawly’s small, hesitant waves. Finds herself _looking_ for the demon when it’s been awhile since they’ve seen each other, scanning crowds for that familiar shade of red and keeping an ear out for rumors of a yellow-eyed lady. 

Much of the time it’s Aziraphale who finds Crawly first. She doesn’t know why – surely Crawly would be able to sense her angelic presence the way she can sense her demonic one. Her skin begins to prickle, as if a cat is lightly dragging their claws across her flesh. A warning of possible future pain if she makes the wrong move. Not at all comfortable, really.

She follows the impulse, feeling out the direction and backtracking when the sensation dims rather than strengthens. By the time she sees Crawly it’s edging on something almost painful but still fairly ignorable, and not nearly so harsh as it was that first time on Eden’s Wall. Most of the time she doesn’t alert Crawly to her presence, preferring to watch from a distance and observe.

She tries to convince herself that she’s doing it to catch Crawly in the act – that if she can _witness_ Crawly do something truly reprehensible, she can stop worrying about the demon. But she can’t quite convince herself. She’s too fascinated. And after all this time she knows better than any angel, and maybe any demon, what a demon does when she thinks no one is watching. 

Crawly naps – short little things that last a few minutes. There’s something about her that’s always on edge, always watchful, and yet she never notices Aziraphale until Aziraphale lets herself be noticed. Crawly talks to herself too – mumbles and argues and sometimes yells, her hands moving, the deft motions of her wrists drawing Aziraphale’s gaze like nothing else.

It’s during one of these observations that another demon enters the vicinity.

They are alone, Crawly and her, so reminiscent of the first time Aziraphale observed Crawly without her noticing that it’s uncanny, but there are differences that keep Aziraphale grounded – the rolling grey clouds in the distance, for instance, signaling an oncoming storm. They’re on the edge of a settlement, this time, the humans’ noises a steady backdrop that keeps her focused.

Aziraphale feels the other demon before she sees them, the hairs on the back of her neck rising as her skin tingles painfully, far harsher than it’s ever done for Crawly. Her Divinity rises, simmering just below her skin, the cool rush of it tempering the stinging pain of the unfamiliar demonic presence.

Her eyes dart across the rocky, sandy terrain, trying to pinpoint where the demon will arise. She sees Crawly lift her head from the plant she was examining, standing from her crouched position. She tips her head back a bit, tongue flicking out from between her lips, a movement so familiar from the other times they’ve met that Aziraphale can anticipate it seconds before it happens.

A patch of ground a few yards from Crawly trembles, and in the blink of an eye a demon is crawling from it, shaking sand from their hair as they rise.

Aziraphale ducks further into the shadows of the abandoned house, the grit digging into her knees as she carefully peers out of a window.

“Hey, Banur, it’s been awhile,” Crawly says, a sharp grin on her face, one that Aziraphale has never seen before.

The other demon – Banur – shakes his head. “Too long.” 

Crawly snorts. “Still tetchy about our last meeting, are you?”

Banur growls, the centipede across his neck writhing in agitation. “If you mean the time you discorporated me, then yeah. I am.”

Crawly raises her hands to her chest, taking a step back. “Hey, no need to get angry at me. It’s not my fault you went against orders.”

Aziraphale tenses as Banur lurches forward, his nails morphing into deadly looking claws. “Orders? We were supposed to destroy those children. I was _following_ orders.”

Crawly inspects her nails. “Rather unimaginatively, I might add. Think about it,” she says, looking at Banur. “If you’d killed them they probably would have gone to Heaven. That’s not what Satan wants, right? By stopping you I made sure each one of them grew up to be heinous sinners. They’re probably in Hell now, right where they belong.”

Banur’s growl grows louder. “You didn’t have to discorporate –”

“Not my fault you’ve got the critical thinking skills of a centipede,” Crawly cuts in.

Banur pauses, obviously confused, but in an instant it morphs back into anger and he’s charging Crawly, thrusting one of his hands at her and –

Aziraphale wants to smite him. Wants to remove every atom of his being from every plane of existence. Wants to do it slowly, wants to watch him suffer, wants to hear him _scream –_

But she doesn’t move. Instead she stays kneeling on the ground, watching wide-eyed and trembling as Banur wrestles with Crawly. Watches as Crawly strikes back, her nails morphing into wicked claws, her fangs elongating, black scales rippling across her neck, her chest, her hands, her arms.

Crawly is no damsel in distress. Crawly does not need her help. In fact, Crawly is gaining the upper hand, viper-quick in her movements. Banur cries out as she swipes his chest, black blood bubbling to the surface.

Aziraphale sees Crawly’s mistake three moves before she makes it, her soldier’s gaze missing nothing, and it takes every ounce of her self-control to not intervene. If she smites Banur now she’ll have to smite Crawly. There will be questions if she doesn’t, harsh ones, and even harsher consequences. She can’t risk it. 

Still. It doesn’t make it any easier to see Crawly lash out again, too cocky this time, leaving her chest dangerously vulnerable. Banur takes the opening, the blow aiming right for Crawly’s heart, and something in Aziraphale’s chest seizes. 

It takes less than a second, all instinct and little finesse – her wrist flicks sharply, lobbing the still-forming miracle at Crawly. She doesn’t know what the miracle is, only knows that it needs to discreetly save Crawly from discorporation and her Divinity thrums under her skin, following the path of her will as it always does, never deviating, and –

The miracle, fine and thin and all but invisible, hits Crawly. Aziraphale feels it like an extension of her hand, creating the smallest, hardest barrier between Banur’s claws and Crawly’s heart. Banur’s claws land but skid upwards just enough that when they finally dig into Crawly’s flesh it doesn’t immediately discorporate her.

Crawly’s scream makes Aziraphale snarl, and she’s half-way standing before she can stop herself, ready to smite Banur from existence, _damn_ the consequences, but –

The consequences.

Aziraphale grits her teeth. Forces herself to sink back to the ground, her back pressing into the dilapidated wall. Her Divinity wants to wreak havoc, wants to protect what’s hers, and for once it’s hard to rein it in, hard to keep it within the confines of her human form.

She closes her eyes and breathes. Listens for the fight – listens to the grunts and the hits and, finally, a triumphant yell from Crawly.

It’s enough. It has to be enough.

She doesn’t know how long she stays in the house – only knows that by the time she leaves there’s no trace of the fight, no trace of Crawly, no clue as to how badly she was injured.

It’s for the best.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She tries not to see Crawly after that but they always run into each other. She’d chalk it up to coincidence if it didn’t happen so much, and she’s starting to think that maybe God actually _hasn’t_ forgiven her for giving her sword to Adam and Eve.

Aziraphale walks through a bustling village, stopping at every beggar she sees to bestow a miracle – the elderly man will befriend the lonely old man on the outskirts of the village and always have a place to stay; the two children, cheeks sunken, will stumble across a recently widowed woman and she’ll take them in; the woman on the side of the road, listless and downtrodden, will wake up tomorrow and want to live.Quick blessings that require barely an ounce of concentration at this point, which is unfortunate, because she’s almost desperate to take her mind off of Crawly.

She can’t stop worrying about her. Can’t stop wondering if she’s been cornered by another demon. Can’t stop wondering if she’s hurt, or scared, or – or – or – _something._ It’s disgraceful, really, for a _demon_ to weigh so heavily on her mind. Any angel worth their Divinity would forget about Crawly.

Then again, any angel worth their Divinity would have smote Crawly the moment she crawled onto the Eastern Gate. 

Still, she keeps an eye out for the demon during her travels, hoping to catch her before she stumbles into something untoward. Which half the time leads _her_ to stumble into trouble and Crawly having to help her out, but better her than Crawly, really.

It’s as she finishes up the last blessing that she feels the telltale tingle begin to spread across her skin. She frowns, looking up, because Crawly shouldn’t be here, not now – there’s a saint in the making in the next village, and for once Aziraphale isn’t the only angel making the rounds.

Crawly is hidden in the shadows of one of the village’s houses, her hair still luminous even in the shadows, utterly unmistakable. Her face, normally hidden in the deep cowl of her cloak, isn’t covered and Aziraphale can’t help her deepening frown because _really, you’re going to flaunt your eyes here, of all places?_

Crawly’s smile falters and something in Aziraphale’s chest tightens at the sight. It’s not her fault, really. It’s not like she’s telling Crawly about all of Heaven’s plans.

_Should I leave? Should I ignore her? No, no, I need to warn her, need to make sure she doesn’t accidentally –_

Crawly’s scream rips her from her thoughts, sending something hot and sharp into her stomach. Aziraphale blinks, frozen, as Crawly’s body falls to the ground with a sickening thud.Her Divinity is ice-cold under her skin, already rising close to the surface but she hesitates, waiting, because she’s seen Crawly fight – surely she won’t lay there like she is, letting the human stomp on her, but she’s not getting up, not fighting, not defendingherself and –

It’s never been a decision. Not for Aziraphale.

Her vision goes red at the edges, something in her snarling, and between one moment and the next she’s between Crawly and the next blow.

“Stop this!”

Her voice is colder than she’s ever heard it and the man in front of her flinches. There’s ice flowing beneath her skin, her Divinity swirling through her body. The man’s eyes widen until he’s showing enough sclera to make her want to grin. Distantly, she realizes there’s a small crowd growing around them but she ignores them, striking fast, gripping the man’s tunic and dragging him towards her.

His breath is rank on her face and she glares at him. “If I see you again I’ll give you something to be afraid of,” she says.

The man’s face twists and she snaps her fingers, letting the man drop to the ground. He scrambles away, mouth open but no noise coming from his throat, and begins sprinting away from her, from Crawly, from the village. The vicious thing in her chest eases. He’ll keep running, aimless, until he drops from exhaustion.

Aziraphale doesn’t linger on him, instead dropping to her knees next to Crawly, ignoring the damp soaking through her clothes. Crawly gazes at her, something wild swirling in those golden eyes, and Aziraphale forces her gaze away. She gives Crawly a once-over, wincing at the awkward angle of her shoulder and the way she’s curled protectively around her middle. Aziraphale can still hear the muffled sound of the man’s boot against Crawly’s ribs and she bites her cheek hard to stop her anger from showing on her face.

“Oh, good Lord,” she says, hands hovering just above Crawly, unable to cross the unspoken line between them.

Crawly snorts, a smirk sliding across her mud-streaked face. “Don’t think She’ll be willing to do anything for me.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, looking away to glare at the small crowd around them, snapping her fingers. They disperse, all of them remembering urgent business they need to attend to, and her Divinity settles back under her skin, a pleasant, cooling buzz. She breathes and rolls her shoulders. Never one for being watched, her.

Then she gestures to the dent in Crawly’s shoulder, fingers nearly touching the wound. “I would like to try and heal this, if you’ll let me.”

Crawly gapes, and as close as they are Aziraphale can see the sharpened points of her fangs. “I – you – you _what?”_

“Did he hit your head?” Aziraphale asks, running her fingers through Crawly’s lovely hair, trying to cover her own lack of surprise because how can she explain to Crawly how she knows she won’t hurt her? How she knows it with a soul-deep surety, how she knows it like she knows each pebble of Eden’s Eastern Wall, how she knows it like she knows every feather on her wings?

How is she supposed to explain it when she can barely bring herself to acknowledge it?

Crawly makes an indecipherable noise – one of the many she’s gotten used to over the years – and Aziraphale stills her hand, fighting off a blush. Crawly’s hair is softer than she thought it would be and she almost aches to braid it in some of the intricate braids she’s seen.

She shakes herself, letting her Divinity pool in her hands, and rests her fingers lightly over Crawly’s shoulder. “Let me know if this hurts,” she says, not letting herself think as she draws the smallest, thinnest film of Divinity she can muster over the wound. Crawly relaxes into her touch and she smiles at her.

“There, there,” Aziraphale says. Her Divinity is cool under her hands but warming where it touches Crawly’s skin, a warmth that sends tingles shooting up her arms. It’s almost pleasant. After a moment she pulls away, letting her Divinity settle within her again, and stands, offering a hand to help Crawly up. Crawly’s hand is hot in hers and she relishes the brief moment of contact, forcing herself not to flex her fingers. Before she can ask Crawly is she wants her to heal her ribs the air buzzes with a demonic miracle and Crawly brushes the dust and dirt from her clothes, nimble fingers picking at loose grass.

A beat passes before either of them speak. Crawly clears her throat. “Should I say thank you?” she asks, rubbing the back of her neck and leaning away from Aziraphale.

Aziraphale stiffens. She’s seen this body language before, seen people occasionally look at her with wariness, but seeing it from Crawly causes some heavy emotion to bubble up in her chest.

“No,” she says. “Best not. What would they say if they found out I’d saved a demon from an unprovoked attack?” _What would Hell do to you for needing me to save you?_

Crawly snorts, the small, quick sound carrying a nearly unbearable amount of bitterness. She raises the hood of her cloak, eyes glancing around. “Don’t know which humans you’ve been hanging around, _angel_ , but a little bit of difference is all it takes,” she says, gesturing to her eyes.

Aziraphale bites her cheek at the bitterness lacing her words, frowning. _How many of these attacks have you suffered through?_

But the way Crawly calls her ‘angel’ makes her focus, because Crawly still doesn’t know about the saint-in-the-making, still doesn’t know about the extra patrolling.

“Yes, well,” she says, wringing her hands together because she can’t be doing this – can’t be entertaining a demon in broad daylight when Gabriel could pop by unannounced at anytime. “I’ll leave you to it, I suppose.”

Despite the hood of her cloak Aziraphale can see Crawly’s eyes, can see the flash of hurt, can all but taste the loneliness pouring from her. There’s nothing more she wants to do than to take Crawly and leave this place – find somewhere far away from everything and enjoy her company without the overwhelming fear pressing down on her shoulders.

But she can’t. She needs Crawly to leave _now,_ before another angel shows up. Before she plummets further into whatever feelings the demon invokes in her. But it’s hard when Crawly sways towards her, a movement so small she knows it’s not conscious. She makes a split second decision.

“Demon,” she says, turning away before she can see whatever damage she knows she’s dealt. It’s better this way. Crawly is a demon, after all, and she’s an angel – they shouldn’t be speaking, shouldn’t be _whatever_ it is they’re slowly becoming.

A demon should _not_ be unconsciously _leaning towards_ an angel.

Still, Aziraphale can’t help herself. She looks over her shoulder and watches Crawly’s back as she slinks back into the shadows, a lump in her throat.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Her first sin, if it can be called that, wasn’t in indulging the demon on the Wall. It wasn’t even giving Adam and Eve her sword.

Her first sin – the first time she _purposefully_ and _knowingly_ went againstGod’s orders – is breaking the Wall.

It was, perhaps, easier than it should have been. When given the assignment, the first thing the Principalities had done was miracle their individual sections of the Wall unbreakable. It was no trouble to render the miracle inert, no trouble to press her hands against the cold stone and push until there was a human-sized hole through it. No trouble to brush the dust from her hands afterward, leaving nearly imperceptible marks on her white robes.

No trouble, really, to be the first to look throughthe Wall and see the unknowing that awaited the humans behind her.

But she’d seen the look in their eyes, so determined, so naïve, so sure of what they were going to do – and for a split second she was back in Heaven, seeing some of the other angels begin to rise up against God. The same look in their eyes, the same defiance etched into their faces.

So she pressed her sword into Adam’s hands and all but shoved them from the Garden, eyes skyward as her heart – unneeded and so very human – beat hard against her chest.

And maybe she was wrong, and maybe it was a mistake, and maybe all of human history – the horrors, the wars, the genocide, _all of it –_ is, to some extent, her fault.

But she saw the look in their eyes and thought, _oh, there’s a story here,_ and didn’t think.

She’s always been a sucker for a good story, after all. 

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Aziraphale enjoys humans to an extent, but not the way Crawly – _Crowley –_ does.

They run into each other, of course, again and again. There are times where she’s sure she’s so caught up with something that she doesn’t notice Crowley watching her, and the reverse is absolutely true as well. She’s spotted Crowley doing a thousand non-demonic things, like keeping children occupied when their parents fight, or slipping coin to a beggar, or even healing the occasional animal.

She almost feels bad, really, that she can’t quite seem to connect to humans on the immediate level that Crowley can. She loves their stories, of course, and will spend hours around a hearth listening to them tell their tales of epic quests and wayward lovers. Creation stories especially are wonderful, and she’ll travel out of her way to listen to one. Despite the similarities of their stories they’re varied enough to keep her entertained, to keep her interested, and as time goes on she begins to seek stories out for herself. She speaks with healers and bards and the elderly and anyone who even _looks_ like they may have a good story up their sleeve.

Eventually the humans begin to write, marking clay tablets and papyrus scrolls and codices and she can’t get enough. She ends up working on a Bible high up in some mountain range – she doesn’t remember the name, and after awhile all of the mountain ranges look the same, anyway – infusing the leaves she’s working on with miracles strong enough to make sure the Bible will last for centuries. The ink is miracled so it won’t fade, and she’ll do the same when she gets to the illuminations.

The monks, who would normally be aghast at her presence at the monastery, let alone the scriptorium, leave her be with a few miracles. By the time she’s done with the Bible it’ll be springtime, and the little vacation she’s taken will be over.

She’ll miss the peacefulness of it, despite the cold.

She works late into the night, patient and slow as she copies line after line onto the parchment, making sure each stroke is precise. She doesn’t notice the tingles across her skin at first, enthralled as she is with the manuscript in front of her, but eventually her Divinity begins brimming underneath her skin, her hand almost shaking with the urgency of it, and she’s forced to set her quill down. The crawl of her skin is familiar but one she hasn’t felt in at least a decade, probably longer.

Crowley is close by, and with the blizzard raging outside it’s not hard for Aziraphale to put the dots together.

She’s running through the monastery before she can register her movements, snapping out a hasty miracle so none of the monks awaken. The wind nearly knocks her off her feet when she steps outside, slicing through her woolen clothing. Another snap of her fingers and she clears a thin path through the snow, heart beating hard against her chest as she follows the crawling of her skin.

Time ceases to mean anything once the storm engulfs her. All she knows is the wind howling in her ears and the snow biting into her skin. She doesn’t need to breathe but her body seems to think she does and as she tries to run through the knee-deep snow she pants hard, the air digging into her throat and making her cough. She doesn’t think, doesn’t hesitate, just follows the stinging sensation of her skin, letting it lead her to Crowley.

Aziraphale’s heart leaps into her throat when she finally finds the demon buried in a rapidly growing snow drift. It’s the closest to discorporation she’s ever seen Crowley look. Crowley is unmoving except for the slight rise and fall of her chest, and her face is pale, too pale – the kind of pale that leaves only death in its wake for humans. But Crowley is serpent enough that this could easily discorporate her too. 

Aziraphale snaps her fingers and the snow clears. She doesn’t let herself think – curls her arms around Crowley and holds her against her chest, the freezing temperature of the demon’s normally fire-hot skin causing her stomach to drop. Another snap of her fingers and they’re in the monastery, in her room, the fire roaring and the window shuttered.

Crowley’s hands and feet are blue, ice crystals dotting her skin. In some places her skin has given way to scales and the sight makes Aziraphale suck in a breath because Crowley doesn’t let her scales out for anything short of surprise or a last ditch effort of defense. There’s ice in her hair as well, in her clothes too, and with another snap of her fingers Crowley’s hair and clothes are dry.

As she lays Crowley on the bed she’s drafting a report to Heaven to excuse the miracles, already concocting a story, already _a monk got caught in the blizzard and I had to rescue him – can’t let a man of the cloth die, after all, not when I can so easily intervene._

She tucks Crowley in, surprised at the slim weight of her, a stray thought of _I really ought to try and get her to eat more_ before she remembers that they don’t technically need to eat.

But they don’t technically die, either, and here Crowley is, very much dying.

Aziraphale bites her cheek, the pain making her focus. Another snap of her fingers and she’s got more blankets to work with. Her hands brush Crowley’s frigid skin and the decision is made without her say-so. She peels back the blankets and, knowing hesitation will lead to stagnation, quickly wraps herself around the demon. She shivers – Crowley is _cold_ in a way she’s never been before, in a way that makes Aziraphale’s stomach roll. Biting the inside of her cheek, she pulls Crowley close, desperately ignoring the way Crowley melts into her, the way she slowly begins to shiver, because if she focuses on it then she’ll do something rash, something like –

Brush the hair from her face, maybe. Or bury her own face into Crowley’s hair.

Crowley whines, instinctively curling back into her, and Aziraphale wraps her arms around her in response. Presses her face into Crowley’s neck and pulls at her Divinity, slowly raising her internal temperature.

She doesn’t know how much time passes. Only knows that as the night wears on Crowley begins regaining her color. At some point she slips from unconsciousness to sleep because she snuffles, a fragile little thing that makes Aziraphale’s heart skip a beat. She tries to ignore it – the snuffle, the low firelight dancing across Crowley’s face, the feeling of being curled around her – but she can’t. Not fully. And it sets her chest aching, sets her biting her cheek because, despite the circumstances, she’s never felt more comfortable, more settled.

 _Dangerous ground,_ she thinks as she slips an arm under Crowley’s pillow. Her other arm rests loosely on Crowley’s hips, keeping her tucked into Aziraphale’s warmth, and the tight knot in her chest unfurls as, finally, Crowley’s shivers begin to abate.

Despite the warmth and comfort around her, despite knowing for the first time in decades that Crowley is safe, she keeps her senses peeled. It wouldn’t do for Gabriel to make a surprise visit – not that he’s visited her in nearly fifty years, but there’s never been rhyme or reason to his appearances. More importantly, though, as the sky begins to lighten and sunlight begins to brighten the room, she needs to make sure none of the monks bother her.

They don’t. Like Crowley, they end up sleeping the day away, leaving Aziraphale feeling vaguely guilty about the stronger-than-needed miracle. It’s better, though, in the long run.

The sun dips back under the horizon and Aziraphale uses another miracle to keep the fire across her room going. Eventually Crowley shifts, breathing deep, and Aziraphale watches, rapt, as her tongue tastes the air. She can see the confusion written across her face, can see the moment when Crowley recognizes the scents around her and opens her eyes.

Aziraphale shushes her before she can say anything, one of her hands still playing with her hair. “Go back to sleep, Crowley,” she whispers. There’s a beat of hesitation but Crowley melts back into her embrace, slipping back into sleep, and Aziraphale smiles into the back of her neck.

The last, lingering vestiges of anxiety disappear, and Aziraphale feels her eyes begin to sting from the sharpness of it. Crowley won’t be discorporating anytime soon, not if she has any say in it. As Crowley’s temperature grows hotter, the Hellfire in her veins finally warming her, Aziraphale begins to bring her own body temperature down to its normal cool levels.

She keeps her guard, watching over the dozing demon. Eventually she begins humming to entertain herself, one of the few songs from Heaven she actually enjoys. It’s an ode to God creating the first plant, the first animal, before the humans and before the War.

Crowley stirs again, a confused noise pulling at Aziraphale’s attention.

“Had to get you warmed up somehow,” she explains. “You were so close to discorporation that I didn’t think I’d be able to pull you back.”

“Sssorry, angel,” Crowley hisses, the serpent more readily at the forefront than normal, and the exhaustion in her voice tugs at Aziraphale, makes her arm slip from her hair and tighten around her waist.

“Sleep, Crowley.” _We’ve got all the time in the world._

But Crowley doesn’t close her eyes. Aziraphale watches, fascinated, as Crowley drags herself to wakefulness, yawning once as she blinks rapidly.

“Why?” Crowley says, tired and slow, still not looking at Aziraphale.

“Why what?”

“Why save me?”

Aziraphale hums. _Why indeed?_ She wants to say: “It wasn’t a choice, not to me.” She wants to say: “Maybe I get lonely too. Maybe you’re my only friend too. Maybe I don’t want to lose you either.” She wants to say: “What’s the point of being on Earth without you?” She wants to say: “I’ve already broken rules for you – what’s another?”

She wants to say: “Who would I be without you here to remind me?” 

But she can’t say any of those things. Can’t allow them past her throat; can barely allow them a space in her mind. She doesn’t want to think about what would happen to Crowley, doesn’t want to think about what Heaven and Hell would to to her if they found out how dear Crowley is to her.

There are worse things than discorporating, she knows. There are worse things than spending another fifty years missing Crowley. But knowing there are worse things doesn’t mean the lesser things hurt less.

Crowley’s nearly asleep by the time she can muster up a passable answer. “What kind of angel would I be if I let you die when I could do something about it?” she asks, halfway hoping Crowley is too exhausted to read between the lines and halfway hoping she isn’t.

Crowley sighs, long and deep as Aziraphale resumes playing with her hair.

Her Divinity swirls underneath her fingertips, and with a few deft words she lightly Blesses Crowley, breathing her Blessing into Crowley’s skin until it finally takes hold. It’s small, subtle, and won’t be found unless explicitly looked for.

When she’s done she waits – waits for the punishment, waits for a blinding flash of light, waits for unbearable pain – but nothing happens. The relief is enough to make her head spin, because at least now she’ll be able to keep better tabs on this erstwhile demon.

In the morning Crowley will slip away from her as she’s checking the monks, and Aziraphale won’t see her for the rest of the fourteenth century. It will be a blessing and a curse to have Blessed her, to know where she is and not go to her, to know that she _must_ have done something wrong, _must_ have said something wrong, for Crowley to disappear like this.

But for now she keeps her arms wrapped around Crowley, keeps her knees tucked behind Crowley’s, and meditates, senses peeled for anything untoward. 

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The day Eve bit the apple was not the same day Adam bit the apple. Eve kept her knowledge to herself at first. Aziraphale, too late to save Eve from the apple’s temptation, watched her from atop the Eastern Gate, wringing her hands together because this wasn’t how it was supposed to go – there was a plan and nothing in the plan told her what to do on the off chance that Eve took a bite from the apple.

Eve spent the entire day traversing the garden and naming things, brushing her hands across the plants and naming them _tree_ and _flower_ and _grass_ and _moss;_ naming the water _stream_ and _pond_ and _waterfall;_ naming the animals _bird_ and _insect_ and _mammal._

Aziraphale watched as Eve’s steps grew surer, her hands no longer trembling as she reached and reached and reached, naming things, naming _otter_ and _oak_ and _palm_ and _spider_ and _tiger._ Name after name after name, until the shadows grew long and the moon overtook the sun.

And Aziraphale drew in a sharp, unneeded breath as Eve turned her face upwards towards the stars, her eyes growing wide, a radiant smile blooming across her face. When Eve took in the vastness of the sky above her, Aziraphale knew she would do great things, knew that her story would be worth following, knew that while this may not be part of Heaven’s plan this was absolutely part of the _ineffable_ plan.

Eve looked up and named what she saw _sky,_ named it _stars,_ named it _galaxy._

It was only once the sun rose the next morning that Eve approached Adam with the apple, fresh as though she’d just taken a bite from it, and handed it to him.

It’s the day after everything – Adam and Eve leaving Eden, lying to God about her sword, getting her new assignment to stay on Earth – that Aziraphale wonders if Eve renamed herself in some secret way, to make even one part of herself wholly and utterly hers.

She doesn’t know that part of the story, though, and she never will.

What she does know is that after the fourteenth century Crowley will call her _angel_ but there will be a new weight to it, a new heft, transforming it from _angel_ to _Angel_ and it leaves her breathless, leaves her light-headed, leaves her wondering if this is how all of those things in the Garden felt when Eve named them, makes her wonder if, perhaps, this is how Eve wanted to be named.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

“It’s not like I can get into Heaven, Angel,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale shoots her a look as she continues peeling her orange. “Yes, yes, I know that. But that doesn’t mean I want to lose my spot in Heaven.”

Crowley scoffs. “You’re not going to Fall,” she says, something dark flashing across her gaze.

Aziraphale hums, fighting down the urge to smirk. If Crowley knew how she questioned she might not be so sure. No angel has Fallen since the War, and Heaven is quite against it, but then again no other angel has befriended a demon.

But while she’s always been drawn to stories full of intrigue, that doesn’t mean she wants it in her own life.

“This Arrangement you’ve proposed is dangerous,” she says, flicking some of the orange peel onto the table. “It treads on feet better left untread.” _And I’ve already tread on enough feet by Blessing you._

Crowley shrugs. “What’s a little rebellion?” she asks, trying for flippant and unconcerned but Aziraphale has known her for hundreds of years, can spot the tightness in her mouth and eyes from across oceans.

Aziraphale shoots her a withering look. “Because that turned out so well for you last time.”

Crowley throws her hands up in faux defeat. “Listen, listen, if it gets too dangerous you can bail out whenever you want to, no hard feelings. Let me worry about myself.”

Aziraphale bites the inside of her cheek, frowning harder as she flicks away more orange peel. _That’s the problem you daft fool – you never thing about yourself._

“And what about you?” she asks. “I doubt you’ll be able to ‘bail out.’” She turns her full attention to Crowley then, tired of watching her from her peripherals. “You’ve said it yourself that Hell doesn’t send reprimands via notes. What will happen to you if we get caught?”

Because Aziraphale has never Fallen, has never been to Hell, has no way to know what it’s like, but Crowley will tell her, sometimes, when she’s so drunk she can hardly remember who she is. She’ll tell Aziraphale about all the things Hell thinks she’s done, all the things they want her to do, of all the demons who will slit her throat the moment the opportunity presents itself.

Moreover, she’s seen Crowley come back from a prolonged stay in Hell, her skin pale, eyes wide and gaze always flitting about. She’s seen the wounds, the bruises, the limps Crowley often ends up accruing, and there’s nothing more she wants to do than smite every demon from every plane of existence when Crowley comes to her like that, wanting nothing more than a distraction Aziraphale will always provide.

Crowley shrugs again, refusing to meet her eyes. “I can worry about that later. All I know is that right now I don’t want to go that far North this time of year. I’m cold just thinking about it,” she says with a shiver, wrapping her arms around herself as if expecting the temperature to immediately drop.

Aziraphale squints, giving Crowley a once over, ignoring the blush blooming across Crowley’s cheeks and the warmth unfurling in her own chest. “You never have been one for the cold.”

“No, I haven’t.”

There’s a beat before Aziraphale sighs. She shouldn’t. It’s dangerous. _Too_ dangerous. But she’s already flouted all the rules with that Blessing she put on Crowley all of those years ago, already flouted the rules by being friendly with Crowley. What’s one more? Especially when it means she’ll be able to see Crowley on a more regular basis.

“Deal,” she says, holding out her hand.

Crowley gapes, sputtering, and Aziraphale tries not to find it endearing. “You – I – _What?”_

She forces a decidedly unimpressed look onto her face. “Fine. I agree to your little Arrangement. Besides,” she says airily, “I’d hate to have to cuddle you to life again.”

Aziraphale watches Crowley choke as she shakes her hand, standing as she does so. She lets her touch linger, reveling in the Hellfire warmth Crowley is emanating, watching sharply as Crowley’s blush reaches the tips of her ears.

She nods at Crowley and leaves the tavern, making sure she’s turned a corner before beaming.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She’s rarely called to Heaven anymore but when she is it makes her chest tighten in the worst way. She wonders, sometimes, if there are other angels who feel this way in Heaven. Surely there must be, but if there are she wouldn’t know. She wouldn’t dare to try and find out.

Falling isn’t on the list of punishments in Heaven anymore, but that doesn’t stop her from remembering. Doesn’t stop the scar on her thigh from aching sometimes. Doesn’t stop her from avoiding active volcanoes, the smell of them just close enough to the scent of Falling angels to make her stomach turn.

She doesn’t know if there’s anything worse than Falling. She’s not inclined to find out.

Thus far she’s only received strongly worded notes for any misdeeds, usually because she’s used too many ‘frivolous’ miracles. She’s still not quite sure how any miracle could be ‘frivolous’ – surely if the miracle wasn’t meant to happen she wouldn’t have the power to do it.

When she gets back to Earth the first thing she does is find somewhere warm and sunny. This time it’s a little seaside town somewhere in Italy, the waves a soothing beat in the back of her mind. She focuses on the scroll in her hands, reading aloud as Crowley inches closer to her.

She can’t process the words when Crowley is this close, her hair shining in the sun, her eyes glinting. There’s red on her cheeks but she can’t tell if it’s from blush or sunburn, and the heat coming off of her is _divine,_ grounding her to the present, thawing her from the outside in as she shakes off the last of Heaven’s eerie frigidity.

Crowley’s shoulder touches hers and she stutters over the next words, unable to keep reading as her eyes flit about Crowley’s face. Crowley’s own gaze is focused doggedly on the scroll now that she’s been caught, and Aziraphale nearly grins at it. She opens her mouth to say something, anything, but Crowley beats her to it.

“Sailing, then?” she asks.

“What – oh,” Aziraphale says, looking back at the scroll. “Yes. Haven’t you been listening?” she can’t help but ask, already knowing the answer. “I thought you’d like it, what with your own penchant for adventure.”

Crowley shrugs, turning away to look at the sea. “Not one for going across large bodies of water, me.”

“And why ever not?” Aziraphale asks, turning towards the other, because there’s something hesitant in Crowley’s voice that she’s unaccustomed to hearing, something _nervous,_ almost, and she must know why.

Crowley meets her eyes, giving her an unimpressed look from over her glasses. “Demons aren’t exactly fond of water.”

Aziraphale scoffs. “Surely you can sense whether water is holy or not.”

“Yeah,” Crowley says with a shrug, “but that doesn’t stop us from getting a bit nervous around large quantities of it. Haven’t you been to India? They’ve got seven holy rivers over there.” Crowley shivers, shaking her head. “Best to keep away from all of it, I say. Never know when an entire ocean is suddenly going to be blessed.”

Well. She’d never thought of that. She purses her lips. “I didn’t know that would harm you. Different religion and all.”

Crowley snorts, an indelicate thing that makes Aziraphale bite her cheek. “Holy is holy, Angel. And there’s nothing holy about me.”

Aziraphale stares, unblinking, at Crowley, the words hitting her like a blow. The thought is whiplash hard, tearing through her head with the intensity of a sword: _That’s not true._

She opens her mouth to protest but just as quickly closes it. Because it _is_ true, isn’t it? Crowley is a demon. She’s Fallen. She’s Damned. The ice-cold Divinity that once flowed through her was scorched long ago, burnt away and corrupted into Hellfire.

But the thing is – the thing is –

She’s observed Crowley for thousands of years. She knows the warm heart under the demon’s sarcastic veneer. She knows Crowley willfully and purposefully flouts her demonic nature sometimes, healing children and helping those in need. Since their Arrangement Crowley’s been a bit more upfront about it, even – has all but _blessed_ someone in Aziraphale’s stead. She’s made sure crops grow, she’s released the innocent from prisons, she’s freed wives from overbearing husbands and vice versa.

There’s a streak of good in Crowley, left unsullied by the Fall and everything thereafter. She’s witnessedit, despite Crowley’s best attempts to keep her from doing so.

But she’s treading on dangerous ground. This – _this_ is why she needs to keep her walls up. _This_ is why she needs to stay away from Crowley, why she needs to distance herself, why she needs to push the other away.

If Heaven ever found out about their Arrangement, about _them,_ she – well. She doesn’t dare think about it. Better to roll it up in a ball and shove it far, far away in her mind.

An _angel_ thinking a _demon_ is good. The blasphemy of it. 

She stands, rolling up the scroll. “Speaking of, I really must be going.”

Crowley starts. “Thought we were having a decent time, Angel,” she says, and Aziraphale doesn’t miss the way she falters as she reaches out, instead scratching at the back of her neck.

Her heart aches. _We were – that’s the problem._

Sometimes she thinks the problem doesn’t lie in Crowley’s Damnation but in the fact the she _isn’t_ Damned. And for a brief, terrifying second, she wonders how much easier it would be if she were Damned as well.

“Yes, well, I need to go,” she says, already walking away, trying not to look back. But she can’t help herself. Can’t help turning to Crowley again – Crowley, who’s leaned after her like a flower does the sun, Crowley who is already beckoning her to come back, Crowley who is _kind_ despite everything – and the words bubble to her lips, traitorous and blasphemous but true nonetheless. 

_Maybe you’re holy to me._

She cuts her eyes away, looking at the ground, and flees up the stone steps leading to the town.

For once she doesn’t look back.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

“Crowley, is that you?”

Crowley startles, her head whipping around, and Aziraphale can spot the moment the hiss dies in her throat.

“Hey, Angel,” she says, grinning and patting the space beside her. “Lovely night to watch the stars.”

Aziraphale looks up at the sky, doubtful. There’s clouds in the distance – great billowing things that promise a nasty storm, and she’s more inclined to pick Crowley up and find some shelter than sit out here in the open.

But Crowley is smiling at her, sharp-toothed and lovely, and Aziraphale sits beside her, passing Crowley the bottle she’s been carrying.

She watches with a grin of her own as Crowley downs it without reservation, eyes going wide at the burn. “Not pulling the punches tonight, I see.”

“No,” she says, “I don’t suppose so.”

Crowley squints at her, assessing, and Aziraphale can’t meet her gaze. “What’s wrong, Angel?”

Aziraphale sighs. “Nothing, not really. Just part of the plan.” She doesn’t want to think about the plans Heaven is putting into motion, doesn’t want to think about her own part in it, because the more she thinks about it the more wrong it feels.

Not that how she feels about anything matters, of course.

Crowley nods. “The Ineffable one?”

“Is there any other?”

“I try not to understand what She’s thinking,” Crowley says with a shrug. “Gave up on that a long time ago.”

Aziraphale looks at her, tracing the line of her nose as she looks up at the sky. She wonders, sometimes, if Crowley truly _has_ given up on God. She doesn’t think so, not really – she’s caught her demon talking to God a handful of times over the centuries. Sometimes long speeches and sometimes a single word. Sometimes just a sharp look upwards. It’s enough to make her think that Crowley isn’t as lost as the other demons, isn’t as wholly Damned as them if she can still talk to God.

Crowley passes her the bottle and she takes another swig, loving the burn down her throat. Then she clenches it to her chest to stop herself from wringing her hands together because once again she’s found herself next to Crowley. Once again she’s sharing a drink with her. Once again they’re conversing.

Sometimes she wonders why she even botherspretending to not want this.

“I made them, you know.”

Crowley’s voice jolts her from her reverie.

“What?”

Crowley jerks her chin up. “The stars,” she says. “Not all of them, of course, but a good number.”

She feels her eyes go wide as her heart stutters in her chest. “Really?”

Crowley grins, her teeth flashing, drawing herself up a little straighter. “Oh yeah. Always hoped the humans would be able to see them. Wasn’t sure, not until I came down here myself.”

There are a thousand questions she wants to ask: Which one was her first? How did she do it? What was it like? Did she have help or was it a solo job? What is her greatest failure? Her greatest success?

Did she see, back in the Garden, the moment Eve looked up and _named_ them?

What she asks is: “Which one is your favorite?”

Crowley answers without hesitation. “Alpha Centauri,” she says, pointing. Aziraphale follows her finger to a glittering star in the Southern sky. “Not that they’ve named it that yet. Makes up that bit of the centaur constellation, see?”

The smile on Aziraphale’s face hurts her cheeks but she can’t dampen it. Can’t dampen the swell of pride in her chest either, because Crowley _made that,_ made that wonderful, beautiful thing, and immediately she treasures it.

“Oh, Crowley, it’s beautiful. I didn’t think –” she grinds to a halt, nearly biting her tongue in the process, feeling the grin fracture on her face. Oh no.

Before she can apologize Crowley speaks, her voice rueful in a way that Aziraphale could hit herself for. “Didn’t think a demon like me could ever create something like that?”

Aziraphale puts the bottle down and wrings her hands together, her chest tightening because no, no, she didn’t mean it like that but – “I’m sorry, my dear, I –”

“Don’t,” Crowley says, voice soft and drenched in something that Aziraphale can’t put her finger on. “What would they say, an angel forgiving a demon?”

She swallows hard. She doesn’t want it to matter but it does.

“Quite right,” she says, looking up at the sky again, desperate not to see the quiet pain etched into Crowley’s eyes. “Still, though.”

Crowley shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry, Angel,” she says, and her voice is unbearably soft now, unbearably gentle. “Most of the time I can’t believe I managed all of that either.”

They lapse into silence. Nothing awkward in it, not after all of the years they’ve run into each other. Aziraphale loves these silences – loves not having to carefully choose her words, loves not having to worry about every syllable. There’s peace in this quiet, peace in simply existing together, and it settles something deep inside of her. Crowley is here, beside her, within arm’s reach, and Aziraphale could happily live out the rest of her existence like this in quiet companionship.

Well. Maybe not the _rest_ of her existence. She’d miss Crowley’s voice after a time.

As the temperature drops Crowley shivers next to her, edging into her space. The clouds choose that moment to let loose a drizzle and Crowley wraps her arms around herself in response.

Aziraphale pulls her wings from their pocket dimension before she realizes what she’s doing, sheltering Crowley the way she did on Eden’s Wall. It’s so reminiscent that she can almost see the flames flickering on her sword in the distance, can almost feel the Wall’s stones under her hands as she breaks through it.

What does Crowley remember of Eden? What does Crowley remember of Heaven? Questions, so many questions – too many questions for an angel like her.

She settles for a simple one, keeping her gaze on the sky. “Do you ever miss it?”

“Miss what?” Crowley asks after a beat, voice nearly a whisper.

“The stars.”

Another beat and Aziraphale can sense the tense lines of Crowley’s shoulders. “Yeah,” she says, voice somewhat hoarse. She clears her throat a few times and Aziraphale doesn’t question further, sensing the sore spot.

She knows more about Crowley’s sore spots than she thinks the demon realizes.

So she stays as the temperature drops, as the clouds grow thicker, as the rain falls harder. Stays until dawn breaks and then stays until the sun dries them because she while she may never fully know the depths of Crowley’s loneliness, the depths of her loss, she can certainly sympathize with it. Because whether she admits it aloud or not Crowley is her best friend. Her dearest friend. Her _only_ friend.

But all pauses must come to an end, and as the sun reaches its zenith they stand. Crowley is close to her, so unbearably close, and she drinks in the sight of the freckles across her face, of her unruly hair, of her serpentine eyes unencumbered by glasses. Despite Crowley’s penchant for dark corners she’s never looked lovelier than bathed in sunlight.

Crowley looks at her, opening her mouth to say something – a witty one-liner, knowing her – but shuts her mouth when her gaze meets Aziraphale’s.

“See you around, Angel,” she says, turning and nearly running down the hill before Aziraphale can reply.

She frowns as she watches Crowley descend. Frowns at the feeling in her chest. Frowns at the _want_ bubbling beneath her skin like her Divinity.

There are many things she shouldn’t want that she lets herself have – food, wine, literature.

But under no circumstance will she allow herself to have Crowley, despite the part of herself that already knows it’s far too late to stop herself. 

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

“Why did you tempt Eve with the apple?” Aziraphale asks, blunt and unprepared, surprising herself so much that she claps a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening.

They’ve been drinking for – well. She doesn’t know how long. But it’s been long enough to loosen her tongue, long enough to muster up her courage and ask questions she normally wouldn’t.

Crowley is rubbing off on her far too much, really.

And she stops that thought in its tracks because, well. She can’t say she’s never _not_ thought about, well. But those thoughts are so few and far in-between that she can’t remember when exactly she _had_ thought of – _well._

Best stop thinking.

Crowley freezes with a glass of wine at her lips, and even from behind her glasses Aziraphale can see her eyes widening, her eyebrows raising. After a beat she splutters, setting the wine glass down.

“I – what – ngk – Angel, what?”

Aziraphale backtracks. “You don’t have to answer, of course, I –”

“No,” Crowley says shaking her head. “It’s alright. Just surprised me, is all.” She pauses, leaning against the couch’s armrest, her hands clasped behind her head. “I haven’t thought about Eden in a long, long time.”

Aziraphale nods. “I haven’t either. But I suppose I always wondered why you chose Eve instead of Adam.”

Crowley snorts. “Lot of good that did her. They don’t remember the story accurately at all, you know.”

“Yes, I was there, of course I know.”

“Right, right,” Crowley says. “I guess I just –” and she stops, teeth clacking as she shuts her mouth.

They sit in silence for a long time. Aziraphale doesn’t rush her, knows that there are some questions Crowley needs to really think about before answering, like how there are questions she can never quite ask. So Aziraphale sips at her wine, resting her hands over her stomach, and stares at Crowley. Watches the twitches of her eyebrows, the pursing of her lips, the way the light from the fireplace plays across her face. Half in shadow, half in light. Something about the sight makes Aziraphale’s chest tighten, makes a lump form in her throat. 

Crowley’s never talked about her Fall, only ever alluded to it, and Aziraphale can never quite buck up the courage to ask her about it. She knows the wound still smarts despite the time that’s passed. Like her own thigh wound, she knows it will never truly heal. Knows that there will always be some part of it that’s raw and hurting.

She leaves the subject alone as best as she can, but Lord help her, sometimes all she wants to do is _know._

Hundreds of years of stories and books will do that to an angel, she supposes. 

Eventually, Crowley opens her mouth again, her voice soft. “I was told to go ‘make some trouble,’ you know. No one specified what kind, and other than the Falling bit, I’d never actually _been_ in any sort of trouble,” she says, taking off her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. She stays like that for a couple of moments and Aziraphale takes the opportunity to stare at her face, rememorizing the shape of her eyes, closed as they are. But then they open and Crowley doesn’t put her glasses back on, doesn’t look at Aziraphale as she continues, one hand dangling off the couch and the other resting on her stomach.

“At the time all I knew was that questions caused trouble. Curiosity caused trouble. Wanting to know more, apparently, wasn’t the way to get into God’s good books,” she says, barking out a bitter laugh. “So I went into the Garden and I watched Adam and Eve for a long, long time.”

Aziraphale hums under her breath. “What set Eve apart?”

Crowley looks at her then, golden eyes glowing in the firelight, serpentine and familiar in a way nothing else is, and for a split second Aziraphale can smell the Garden, can feel the sunlight soaking into her. She blinks and it’s gone but Crowley is still looking at her, unwavering in her stare.

“Eve explored, Angel. Simple as that,” she says, voice serious in a way it so rarely is. “She explored the Garden, walked the perimeter of the Wall while Adam lounged in the water, and that’s when I knew that she was the one that deserved the apple. Deserved the freedom of choice. So I gave her one. Told her what would happen if she ate it, but she did it anyway. And never looked back.”

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow. “You condemned them.”

Crowley mirrors her expression. “The same could be said about you.”

Aziraphale smirks and holds up her wineglass. _Touché._ “To condemning humanity, then.”

Crowley picks up her glass and clinks their glasses together. “To giving them the _choice_ to condemn themselves.”

They each take a sip and warmth blooms across Aziraphale’s cheeks as she watches Crowley move back to her relaxed position across the couch. She begins a rant about turtles, then, a long standing one that Aziraphale knows every word to, and she beams at Crowley, unable to help herself.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

It is 1862 when Crowley hands her a flimsy piece of paper with the words _holy water_ scrawled onto it.

It is 1862 when Aziraphale is so angry, so heartbroken, that she takes her Blessing from Crowley with a flick of her wrist.

If Crowley wants to kill herself, _fine_. She doesn’t have to know about it.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She waits at a café for Crowley, already eating a delicate tea cake.

It’s not like Crowley to be late.

But she waits. Waits until the café closes.

She considers not going to the next meet-up two weeks later but decides to go anyway. Maybe Crowley had simply forgotten or been tied up with something. So she goes to the same café, hoping that her demon shows, and once again she spends hours nibbling at cake and wringing her hands, gaze locked on the windows, searching for that familiar head of hair.

It’s only when she gets back to her bookshop that she lets the tears fall. After all of this time, after _everything_ they’ve been through, she didn’t expect _this._

There’s a part of her, an ugly, angry part, that sneers at her. _I should have known this would happen. Who am I to expect anything better from a demon?_

She shakes her head. No. _No._ Crowley wouldn’t do that. She’s _never_ blown Aziraphale off like this, not once in all of their years together. Something has to be wrong. Something _must_ be wrong.

But the doubt is there, already planted in her mind, and she freezes under its roots, shutting herself away in her bookshop and ignoring every thought of Crowley that comes to her mind.

She pulls a Bible from her shelf, one from the 1400s, and settles at her desk. It’s been a long time since she’s gone over these older manuscripts with a fine tooth comb.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

_Sorry, Angel._

Crowley’s voice, a weak, thready thing, jolts her from her concentration, violently enough that she drops the book she’s reading. It lands on the floor with a heavy thudbut she pays it no mind, her Divinity cresting beneath her skin because this, oh _this –_

People rarely, if ever, directly pray to her. She’s not mentioned in any of the stories, really, except for a quick sentence in some Bibles with her starring as the ‘Principality of the Eastern Gate.’ So when she gets a prayer she _listens,_ because it’s always important.

And never once, in all of their thousands of years together, has Crowley ever prayed to her.

_Didn’t mean to stand you up. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but try not to get into any trouble, you hear me Aziraphale?_

Her heart beats hard against her chest as Crowley’s voice grows stronger. She must be properly praying now, and Aziraphale spares a moment to wonder if it hurts her demon to pray.

_Don’t do anything stupid, Angel. Don’t make me have to do something equally stupid to get you out of trouble._

Her voice cuts off but Aziraphale is already snapping her fingers, tracing the prayer to Crowley’s location.

She takes a single moment to assess the situation. Crowley stares at her, golden eyes glowing in the near darkness of the forest, grinning wildly despite her split lip.

“Angel,” she breathes, heavy with relief, and it’s the best thing she’s heard in nearly a decade.

Aziraphale doesn’t linger on Crowley – can’t. There’s demonic energy barreling towards them but it’s twisted in a way she rarely comes across, almost shackled, and her Divinity flows out from beneath her skin, setting her aglow.

The defensive stance she slips into is instinctive, her right hand already forming a fist in lieu of having a sword to wrap around. The demonic energy dashes closer, wild and enraged, and though it looks like a dog as it crashes through the undergrowth she knows better.

Hellhounds. Nasty things.

“Crowley,” she says, already pulling her Divinity over her skin, “look away.”

The Hellhound leaps at her and she flings her Divinity outward like a whip, catching it across the face and obliterating it in one smooth movement. Another follows, and another, each yelping and howling as her Divinity strikes them.

It’s over before it starts, and there’s a small part of Aziraphale that remains unsatisfied. It’s been far too long since she’s had a good fight.

She doesn’t linger on the feeling, pressing her Divinity deep under her skin the moment the Hellhounds are dealt with. In the distance she hears shouting, and she snaps her fingers, teleporting Crowley and her to the bookshop. She takes another moment to miracle the lights dimmer, to miracle one of the bookshelves closer so Crowley can prop herself against it, knowing she likes to have her back covered whenever possible.

Then, finally, she looks at Crowley, and her breath catches in her throat.

Crowley hasn’t opened her eyes yet. Hasn’t come out of the tight ball she’s curled herself into, her knees against her chest and her arms over her head. Aziraphale tries to keep herself clinical but she can’t because Crowley is here _,_ in front of her, covered in dirt and blood and wounds, and she wants nothing more than to find those that did this and punish them the way they deserve to be.

She kneels next to Crowley and waits, hesitating to touch her. Every line of Crowley’s body is so taught that she fears one unexpected touch could lead to something breaking. She takes a deep breath and waits.

Eventually, Crowley opens her eyes, and the knot in Aziraphale’s chest tightens and loosens in equal measure.

“Crowley? May I touch you?”

Crowley blinks slowly, as if not quite believing her surroundings, but nods. It’s all the permission Aziraphale needs – she presses her hands lightly to Crowley’s wounds, laying down the thinnest layer of Divinity she can muster. She’s healed Crowley enough over the centuries for the process to be familiar – the way her arms tingle as Crowley’s Hellfire warmth leeches into her and the easy way her Divinity flows over the demon.

It’s easy, healing Crowley’s wounds. The cuts, the scrapes, the bruises, the stab wound on her side, the runes carved all across her shoulders.

But the pit of anger in her stomach grows hotter as she works, her teeth grinding together, because this isn’t the work of a few days, a few weeks – this is the work of _years,_ and Crowley hadn’t been able to heal herself if the abundance of scar tissue says anything.

What almost makes her snap, though, are the burns across Crowley’s wrist because she’s seen this before, once or twice, when Crowley has accidentally gotten in the way of flung Holy Water. She’s seen the way a single droplet can burn her demon all the way through, has seen the agonizingly slow rate of healing. As she inspects Crowley’s wounded wrists there’s no doubt in her mind that the ropes used were soaked in Holy Water – not enough to accidentally sever her hands, but enough to make them unusable.

She grits her teeth hard enough for them to creak, red staining her vision.

She doesn’t bother with trying to coax Crowley from her protective curl. Instead she winds her arms where she can, making sure to heal every wound she can sense. It’s draining work, and by the end of it she feels shaky, feels as if she ought to lie down, but there are more important things than her own weariness at the moment.

She sits next to Crowley, desperately reining in the urge to crowd her demon as, slowly, cautiously, she uncurls. Those golden eyes stare at Aziraphale, blinking, and Aziraphale’s grip goes white-knuckled in her lap at the pain-lines etched into Crowley’s face.

“What,” she says between clenched teeth, “happened?”

Crowley makes a garbled noise in her throat, one she’s made many times before, and her eyes go a bit glassy as she stares out one of the bookshop’s windows. She snorts at something.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, laying a hand on Crowley’s cheek. “What happened?”

Crowley swallows. “You know how it goes,” she says, voice hoarse. “Someone finds a bit of lore that’s actually true, tries to summon a demon, and then suddenly I’m being used for parts.” She shakes her head. “How long was it this time, Angel? What’d I miss?”

Aziraphale can barely speak, can barely breathewith the anger choking her throat. “Nearly a decade, darling,” she says, chest tightening, because this is her fault – if she hadn’t doubted, if she hadn’t assumed the worst, if she hadn’t –

“It’s not your fault,” Crowley says, and when Aziraphale looks at her she’s sporting a weak grin that makes Aziraphale’s heart clench. “I’ve been through worse. Nothing a miracle or two won’t fix, as you’ve already seen.”

 _You shouldn’t have gone through it at all._ Aziraphale frowns, eyes stinging, and she’s never hated herself more because –

“You didn’t show up,” she hisses, and Crowley’s face twists and _fuck,_ can she say nothing right? “You didn’t show up and I thought you did it on purpose,” she continues, voice breaking. “I thought you were back in Hell telling all the other demons how you tricked an angel and had been for the past however many thousands of years. When really you were – you were –”

A strangled noise escapes her throat, so unfamiliar that she almost thinks it’s one of Crowley’s noises. But Crowley’s hand is on her cheek, grounding and warm and giving, always _giving,_ as she whispers.

“It’s alright.”

Aziraphale shakes her head, meeting Crowley’s gaze, _needing_ her to know how utterly sorry she is. “No, it’s not. You come for me when I’m in trouble, again and again, and it seems as if I fail you at every turn.”

“No,” Crowley says sharply. “You’ve never failed me. Not once.”

And the conviction in her voice is enough that Aziraphale thinks that maybe Crowley’s known all of this time about her secret observations of her. She tries not to think about it. Instead she moves closer to Crowley, pressing herself against her demon, their hips, shoulders, and legs flush. She keeps her fingers busy gently untangling Crowley’s hair, pulling out bits of branches and clods of dirt, and with a soft snap of her fingers Crowley is cleaned and in new clothing, a simple black t-shirt and sleep pants.

Crowley sighs. Leans into her touch. Melts into her. Aziraphale forces her breath not to hitch, forces her heartbeat to remain steady and Crowley’s breathing evens out.

“I should never have doubted you,” she whispers, still carefully untangling her hair, swallowing the needle-sharp lump in her throat as she does so.

Then she brushes her lips against the crown of Crowley’s head and whispers another Blessing onto her. One that will stay no matter how angry she gets, no matter what happens to their Arrangement.

This isn’t happening again. Not on her watch.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Crowley loves her. She’s wondered for a long, long time, but now she’s confirmed it. Knows it.

Reciprocates it, even. Despite everything.

Aziraphale can’t look away from Crowley in the aftermath. Can’t even pretend not to stare as Crowley wipes the ash from her glasses, already sneering at her. Aziraphale lets her, knowing she doesn’t mean it, because she’s just saved her from Nazis.

More than that, though, she’s saved her books.

And though Crowley will always look loveliest in the sun there’s something serious about the way she inhabits the shadows, something quiet and soft and aching. There’s a hitch in her step from the burns she no doubt carries on her feet, and Aziraphale’s heart clenches because this is how it’s always going to be, isn’t it?

She is an angel. She is holy. She will always put Crowley in danger, directly or indirectly. Crowley will never be truly safe within her reach, but Aziraphale is greedy, she is aching, she is selfish – she wants Crowley as close as the danger allows.

She looks at Crowley and can’t bear the thought of hurting her, can’t bear the thought of being the reason she aches, because if there’s anyone that deserves happiness, deserves _love,_ it’s Crowley. But there are things that Aziraphale can’t do no matter how much she wants to.

She loves Crowley. Loves her more than she’s ever loved anything. But her love is a dangerous thing, something that if spoken aloud could very well bring Heaven to their doorstep, could bring Hell to their doorstep, and, well –

She’s an angel. She was a warrior. She was the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. She would be punished, but her punishment would be wrought upon Crowley.

And she _can’t have that,_ wouldn’t be able to live with herself if Crowley discorporated – or worse – because of her traitorous heart.

So Crowley saves her books and Aziraphale watches, unblinking, as Crowley drives away.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

She can’t say anything right.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

It’s been twenty years since they last met and Crowley is exactly the same. Or, not the same, because she’s always changing her look, but she’s still Crowley beneath it all – the same sinuous saunter, the same expressive brows, the same graceful flick of her wrist.

And while twenty years is a long time for the humans it’s a blink for them. For Aziraphale, though, it’s been a slow blink. She’s _missed_ Crowley; missed their talks in her bookshop, missed their walks around the park, missed their lunches and dinners and everything in between. She’s missed Crowley popping by unannounced with an outing planned or takeout in her hands. Most of all, though, she’s missed Crowley. Missed her voice. Missed her eyes. Missed her drunken rants and her accidental lectures on space.

So she tracked Crowley though her Blessing and found her at this bar – found her and then, courage waning, sat down on the other side to observe.

She knows Crowley knows she’s here. Could tell the moment her presence registered by the way Crowley nearly choked on her drink but refused to look at her. So she sits and waits and watches as a blonde lady approaches Crowley.

The woman leans into Crowley’s space, her hand slipping closer to Crowley’s on the table. She smirks into her wine, knowing Crowley will dissuade the woman, knowing that Crowley doesn’t like that kind of attention.

But Crowley leans in.

Aziraphale blinks, one hand gripping her knee hard as Crowley smiles back – a grin that’s all flirtation, all acknowledgement, all _keep going._ Aziraphale presses her lips together and leans forward as if to –

Well. She doesn’t know what,exactly, she wants to do. Only knows that there’s a rotten feeling curling up in her stomach and branching towards her throat as she watches the spectacle because _really, Crowley, what did she say to make you laugh?_

She shakes her head. It wasn’t even one of her reallaughs – she knows the difference. This is – is – a show. A farce. Crowley will turn the woman down in a few moments. She’s sure of it.

But Crowley doesn’t.

Instead she leans further into the woman, tucking a bit of blonde hair behind her ear, and whispers something that makes the woman blush. Something ugly twists in Aziraphale’s chest but she can’t look away as the woman takes Crowley’s hand and leads her out the door.

Aziraphale nearly flinches as the door of the bar closes. The sounds of the bar are too close, suddenly, the lights too bright, and she snaps her fingers, miracling herself back to her bookshop.

The bookshelves cast long shadows across her floor. It’s quiet, blessedly so, and though the building is always kept warm she shivers, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Well,” she says, desperate to break the settling silence. “Well.”

She buries her head into a Brontë book and tries not to think about Crowley.

Fails.

She tries not to go back the next night. Tries to lose herself in her books but for once the stories don’t keep her attention. There’s a different story unfolding before her, for better or for worse, and she needs to know how it progresses. Needs to know if she still has a chance with Crowley after, after –

Well.

She’d been harsh with the Holy Water. She knows that. Knows that every word she said had been horribly misunderstood by Crowley. Knows that she hurt Crowley deeplythat night, in a way she hasn’t hurt Crowley in a long, long time.

But Crowley had offered her a ride. Had offered her company. And she’d wanted, _oh,_ she’d _wanted._ But there’s a difference between acting on the want and merely existing with the want, and Crowley keeps tempting her into action, keeps nudging her closer and closer to a line that Heaven won’t be able to ignore.

Or, worse yet, that Hell won’t be able to ignore.

Because in the end Aziraphale is still, technically, a Principality. She’ll be punished, absolutely, but Heaven won’t smite her. They’ll give her a slap on the wrist and force her back into the ranks.

Crowley, though, is a different story. She’s thought of all the ways Heaven can hurt Crowley just to teach her a lesson – from Holy Water to outright smiting. She’s kept herself in a frantic state of anxiety for days on end in the past thinking about the possibilities. 

Adding Hell to the equation only increases the horrible endings.

So she’d sat in the Bentley and wanted, with every fiber of her being, to say _yes._ But she didn’t.

Couldn’t.

And now she can’t stop thinking that maybe she put the final nail in the coffin. That maybe Crowley is finally done waiting for her, finally done going slow, finally done hoping, and is moving on. Is giving up on her.

She can’t have that.

So she goes to the bar and sits in the same seat as the night before, orders the same glass of wine, and waits. Crowley saunters in not long after, all but throwing herself into a corner booth and miracling a glass of wine. She sips at it as Aziraphale stares at her, cataloguing the little differences – Crowley’s clothes are slightly wrinkled, her hair a bit messier, her lipstick a shade darker.

Does that mean that she –

Crowley’s eyes meet hers from across the room and it’s the same as all the other times before – their gazes meeting across village streets, markets, enemy lines, crowded buses, opera halls. Electric and sparking, Aziraphale’s gaze pulled like a magnet to Crowley, like a moth to flame, like plants to sunlight.

She wants to kiss Crowley and the urge doesn’t scare her like she thought it would – maybe it’s something she’s wanted all along but hasn’t allowed herself to think about.

A dangerous thing, an angel wanting.

Even more dangerous for an angel to give in.

And maybe it’s the fact that Crowley went home last night with someone who wasn’t her, to some place that wasn’t the bookshop. Maybe it’s that Aziraphale still viscerally remembers that night from the fourteenth century, still knows exactly how it feels to curl around her demon, still –

Maybe it’s the fact that she’s been calling Crowley _hers_ inside of her headfor decades now.

She stands, aiming to finally _do it –_ what, exactly, she doesn’t know. Kiss her? Hug her? Take her to the bookshop and sit her down so they can speak plainly to one another? All of the above? It doesn’t matter, though, because she’s finally acting, finally moving forward, finally –

But Crowley’s eyes flash behind her glasses and Aziraphale watches, her heart plummeting, as Crowley miracles herself away.

 _Well,_ she thinks, standing forlornly in the middle of the crowded bar. _That’s an answer._

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Aziraphale doesn’t outright question. The War put a healthy dose of hesitancy towards questions for all angels, so most of the time no one questions. Gabriel says to do something and they do it. Simple as that. But that doesn’t stop her from thinking her questions, and with Crowley she’s never once been afraid to ask them.

For all of her questioning, though, there are some questions even Crowley shies away from. Some questions she seems to fear asking.

Aziraphale knows little about Crowley’s Fall. Only knows that, despite her flippancy, it hurt a great deal and that she was Damned for her curiosity. Aziraphale can’t say she’s surprised – Crowley is full of questions, practically bursting with them. Sometimes they’re mundane questions, like: “Angel, do you know if turtles have spines?” Sometimes utterly benign, like: “What’s the difference between sea salt and regular salt? Thought all salt was the same. Why are there different salts?” Sometimes studious: “Angel, why haven’t humans figured out how to travel at light speed yet? Do you think it’s still too early for me to tell them?” Sometimes serious: “What do you think happens after a demon’s been smote? Smited? Smote? Whatever.”

Sometimes, though, there are questions Crowley doesn’t ask, no matter how desperately obvious it is that she wants to. Aziraphale has tried to coax them out before to no avail – Crowley will clam up at best. At worse she disappears for a few months, and the only thing keeping Aziraphale from running after her in worry is the fact that Crowley’s still wearing her Blessing. 

She doesn’t know why Crowley is afraid to ask these questions, doesn’t know why the hypothetical answer would frighten her to silence. Surely she knows, by now, that Aziraphale isn’t annoyed or mad by her near ceaseless questioning. Half of her bookshop is dedicated to Crowley, after all – from natural sciences to psychology to mechanics to flight to animals to reptiles to – everything, really. She’s collective a massive amount of nonfiction texts for Crowley’s perusal. Not that she doesn’t look at them too, but she’s always preferred fiction over nonfiction.

She tries not to prod. Really tries. But Crowley is staring at the ground, brows drawn together, bottom lip between her teeth, one foot rolling around and around because she can’t keep still, and Aziraphale knows that she’s got a question she won’t ask.

Aziraphale bites the inside of her cheek. She can’t prod – won’t. But they’d somehow gotten on the topic of greatest regrets, all of the answers utterly unserious until Crowley got quiet, got pensive, her brain always twelve step ahead of Aziraphale. It’s a wonder, sometimes, that Crowley never gets impatient with her and her pondering.

And now there’s a question on Crowley’s tongue that she won’t ask and is this how Crowley feels sometimes, nearly vibrating with curiosity?

She won’t pry. But she can, at least, ask a few questions of her own.

“Do you regret it?”

Crowley startles. “What do you mean?” she says, words slurring in her drunken state.

Aziraphale glances at her own bottle, wondering if she should catch up, but shakes her head. “Do you ever wish things were different?” she asks, rephrasing in the hopes that if she words her question right Crowley will be able to ask _her_ question in a non-question form. Or something.

Crowley, drunk though she is, catches on quickly, her eyes narrow slits behind her glasses. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” she says, taking a swig from her own bottle.

Aziraphale stares at her, unblinking. “You know what I’m talking about.” And if she doesn’t, then there _is_ a real question underlying all of this that Aziraphale wants to know the answer to as well.

“Brave tonight, I see,” Crowley says with a smirk.

Aziraphale straightens. _Guess I’ll use my question, then._ “I admit I’ve wanted to know for quite some time,” she says, spotting the way Crowley’s begun to curl into herself, her eyes flitting around the room. Her heart clenches. Her curiosity isn’t worth Crowley’s discomfort. She backpedals immediately. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, of course.”

Crowley moves out of her half-sprawl, half-curl and into an almost decent sitting position. Looks at Aziraphale over the top of her glasses, her golden eyes catching the firelight and nearly glowing. There’s a warning in that look, sharp but not painful, giving her one last chance to back down.

But Crowley’s just returned from Hell a few hours ago, tattered and dirty and worse for wear, talking up a storm about choices and regrets and, well. It might be good for her to let out some steam, as it were, so Aziraphale doesn’t back down. She leans forward a bit, matching Crowley’s stare, and waits.

After a beat Crowley sighs. “What do you mean, Angel?”

She doesn’t sugarcoat it. “Do you ever wish you hadn’t Fallen?”

Crowley stiffens, the half-curl deepening. Aziraphale watches like a hawk, some benign comment about pastries on the tip of her tongue to derail Crowley if needed. A fine tremble runs through Crowley, her eyes going distant as she looks into the fire dying in the hearth. Her breathing hitches but doesn’t quicken, doesn’t shallow, and though Aziraphale wants to reach out to comfort her demon she doesn’t.

She imagines that, at the moment, touch would be a bit overwhelming.

Crowley is silent for a long, long time. The tremble doesn’t worsen but nor does it abate, and the faraway look in her eyes gets worse before it gets better. When she does speak her voice is low and hard, abrupt in a way she hasn’t heard for thousands of years.

“You wouldn’t get it, Angel.”

No, probably not. But she can try. “Then explain it to me,” she says, keeping her voice calm and steady.

“Hitting the ground changed things.” A pause as she takes another healthy sip of wine. Her voice is cracking, is breaking, skipping out of her throat like a broken record and Aziraphale hatesthat she’s done this.

“Angel, I –” Crowley rubs a hand over her face, nearly knocking over her glasses. “There wasn’t any room left in me for regret. Once the dust settled, there wasn’t – I couldn’t –” Crowley’s laugh is short and bitter. “I regret a lot of things, Angel, but not that.”

Aziraphale cocks her head to the side. “Oh?” she asks, trying to keep the surprise from her face, her body, but her mind is blank because _how can you not regret Falling?_ It’s unthinkable. Out of everything, shouldn’t becoming a demon be Crowley’s greatest regret?

She doesn’t – she can’t – she –

Crowley was right. She doesn’t understand.

Still, she tries. “So if you could be redeemed you wouldn’t be?”

Crowley snorts, sharp and ugly, and takes a long drink from her bottle, her hands shaking. “That’s not how it works. Demons don’t get redeemed.”

“But if you could?” Aziraphale presses, trying to wrap her mind around everything.

“Never,” Crowley says, and the anger in her voice nearly causes Aziraphale to flinch. “It wouldn’t matter. I’d Fall again.”

“But –”

“Ssstop it!” Crowley hisses, standing in one violent motion. “Don’t you get it? I don’t _get_ to be redeemed. I’m unforgiveable, remember?” she says, throwing her arms out wide and nearly hitting a bookshelf. “There’s no redemption to be had, Angel.”

Aziraphale bites the inside of her cheek, wishing she could say what she means for once in her existence. “What I meant was –”

“I don’t care what you meant,” Crowley cuts in. “SSSShe doesssn’t get me forgivenesss,” Crowley hisses. “Not after what SSShe did to me. I only ever asssked quessstionsss. I didn’t doubt Her – I jussst wanted to know more than SSShe wasss willing to give.”

There’s a beat of silence punctuated by Crowley’s rough breathing. She’s looming over the coffee table between them, her shins pressed up into it. Aziraphale has to look up at her like always, and between the light of the dying fire and the thready glow from her inner Hellfire and the hazy yellow streetlight slanting through one of the bookshop’s windows, Crowley looks properly otherworldly – neither angel nor demon but still utterly divine in her own right.

And it hits Aziraphale then that maybe it was never a choice between holy and unholy in the proper sense of the word. Because in this moment Crowley is holyin her self-righteousness, in her anger, in her hurt. And yes Crowley is Damned. And yes Crowley is Fallen. But where else to find holiness than in those left abandoned in God’s wake?

But it doesn’t matter because Crowley is in front of her with trembling hands and wide eyes, her arms still spread wide as if beseeching her for an answer she can’t give.

Aziraphale frowns but meets Crowley’s gaze. “I shouldn’t have pried,” she says.

Crowley huffs, hands on her hips. “No shit,” she says, collapsing back onto the couch with a heavy sigh.

“Was it worth it?”

The question, whispered though it is, leaves her mouth as she thinks it. Her eyes dart to Crowley, an embarrassed blush already prickling at her cheeks as she clasps her hands over her mouth.

“Crowley, my dear, I’m sor–”

“Yes,” Crowley interrupts, voice intense, as if the single world carries the weight of a millennia.

Aziraphale gets the feeling that it does. Understands what Crowley is saying with that one word, understands the rants and the walks and the lunches and the dinners and the arguments and the laughs and the drunkenness and the laughter and the long nights and the long days and the anxiety and the danger and the relief and the overwhelming sense of being _worth it_.

Mostly, though, she understands the love entwined with the word and she beams.

“Yes,” Crowley breathes, looking at her. “It was worth it.”

And Aziraphale’s smile brightens because the shadows in Crowley’s eyes are gone and she’s relaxed fully into the couch, no longer spinning her foot but instead tapping out a rhythm on her thigh.

Aziraphale leans back into her chair.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She wonders, sometimes, how Eve would have told her story. Where would she begin? Where would she end? Aziraphale likes to think Eve would start her story somewhere in the middle, when she looked around Eden and _named._

Aziraphale used to think her story started in Heaven. It started when she was Created. As a new angel she kept to herself – the angels before her weren’t made for war, didn’t understand why she knew how to handle her sword in every style not yet made and a few that were never invented. They were too busy with Creating.

She wanted to watch them work but as more angels like herself were Created she was pulled away to train them, again and again, even though they didn’t need training. Maybe they needed the routine of it. Maybe she needed the responsibility of it.

Not that any of it helped, in the end. Half of the Host still rebelled. In the end she still had to fight her siblings, still had to watch as angels Fell around her, as angels died around her.

And maybe everything that happened in Heaven still means something, still counts towards her story like an unwanted prelude that everyone skips over. If she’d had the choice she would have skipped over it too. Because her story doesn’t start with sword drills or training sessions or a battle. Her story starts with a demon sliding up next to her on Eden’s Wall and joking with her. It starts with Crawly blinking wildly at her, golden eyes glimmering, her teeth glinting in the sun as a surprised smile flits across her face.

Or maybe it starts later – starts on a sweltering day in the middle of a desert as Aziraphale watches Crowley from the shadows, the demon too entranced by a lizard to sense her presence. Maybe it’s when, during one of their many drunken conversations, Crowley lets it slip that she _can_ sense Divinity, it’s just that Aziraphale’s in particular has never once registered as a danger to any of her senses, and that’s why she can sometimes sneak up on her.

Maybe it’s the day Crowley _names_ her Angel instead of angel. The smallest difference in inflection that still overwhelms Aziraphale, still boggles her, because there’s so much affection laced within those two simple syllables and surely it shouldn’t mean _everything_ but it does.

_It does._

Not that it matters where her story begins, really, because the moment Crowley tells her of the Apocalypse she can, for the first time, clearly see exactly when and how it will end. As she puts the phone down and sits back in her chair, she realizes that no matter how her story begins, the ending was written a long time ago.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The Apocalypse begins. Aziraphale tries not to think about and succeeds for all of one second. Then there’s nothing else she can think about. 

Crowley paces a tight circle in front of her, nearly spitting in her anger, her arms thrown up at the sky.

“And a great bloody screw you to the Great _damned_ Plan!”

Aziraphale’s face twitches in distaste. “May God forgive you.”

Crowley whirls on her, nearly trembling with unspent energy. “May God forgive you,” she mimics in a nasally voice. Then she scoffs. “May I forgive God, more like, for all of this bloody nonsense.”

Aziraphale gives her a sharp look and grits her teeth. “If you weren’t Damned already you’d be Damned for that.”

“Good!” Crowley yells, looking up at the cloudy sky. “You hear that God? Damn me again, I dare you.”

Aziraphale closes her eyes. “For someone who was an angel once, you are dreadfully irreverent.”

“That was a long time ago, Angel,” she says. “We need to find the kid and kill him.”

_“What?”_

“Yeah,” Crowley says, still pacing in a tight circle, her voice frantic as she thinks up a plan. “Find the kid. Kill the kid. No Apocalypse. No war.”

Aziraphale stutters over her response, barely able to process Crowley’s words. “And who do you expect to do the killing? You?”

Crowley jerks back, an affronted look on her face. “I’m a demon, not a monster. I’m not killing a kid.”

“Then who?” Aziraphale asks through clenched teeth. “Me? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m an _angel._ I can’t go around killing.”

“Yeah, yeah, because the Flood was so merciful, right? And the whole Jesus bit didn’t include and killing. And don’t even get me started on the Crusades, Angel, I –”

“I’m not killing anybody.”

They pause, staring at each other, their noses nearly touching. This close and Aziraphale can feel the heat emanating off of Crowley, that Hellfire warmth seeping into her skin and grounding her like it always does. She takes a deep, measured breath and watches as Crowley does the same.

“Run away with me,” Crowley says in a whisper. Her face softens. “Big universe. No one will find us.”

And Aziraphale knows that this is more than an offer – knows that this is Crowley once again bearing her heart to her despite all the failed times before. Hoping against hope that, just this once, Aziraphale will say yes. But Aziraphale can’t. No matter how much she might want to.

Aziraphale loves her for it. She also hates her for it.

She steps away, shaking her head, breaking the small, hazy bubble that had formed around them. The birdsong comes back, the wind ruffling Crowley’s hair.

“I can’t do that,” she says.

And Crowley smiles, a rueful thing that makes her heart twist. “I know, Angel.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hadn’t dared to. But whatever plan that’s being unveiled is wrong, is cruel, is _unforgiveable._ Surely it’s not God’s plan – She’d promised, after all, not to do such a horrible thing again. Gave humanity a rainbow and everything.

But the Metatron tells her in no uncertain terms that war is what Heaven wants and so war it will get, and between one moment and the next she’s back in Heaven, discorporated, given orders that she won’t follow.

There’s a buzzing in her head as she looks at the globe in the middle of the sparkling white room. She thinks that maybe this is something Crowley had been trying to tell her all along without really knowing it herself – Heaven doesn’t worship God anymore. There’s nothing _holy_ about Heaven. They worship _a_ plan, Gabriel’s plan, maybe, but not _The Plan._

The revelation is cutting, slicing her to her core, but there’s no pain – just a relief so strong it nearly sends her to her knees. She sways with it, nearly giddy, and she needs to tell Crowley right away, needs to tell her that the plan playing out isn’t the Ineffable Plan but rather some scheme of Gabriel’s, some scheme of Hell’s, some scheme unknowingly cooked up over a millennia of silence from God and assumed to be Her plan.

She looks at the globe and focuses on the Blessing she bestowed Crowley all of those years ago, feels that thin line of protection brighten and warm, and in a single moment she knows where Crowley is, knows that she’s hurting, desperately so, and there’s no time to think.

Crowley didn’t choose to Fall.

Aziraphale does.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The ground shakes violently underneath her and she stumbles with it, already moving to catch Crowley but she’s too slow – Crowley is on her knees, eyes closed, her teeth gritted so hard that Aziraphale can almost hear the bones of her jaw creaking.

Satan is coming for them, for _Crowley,_ and Aziraphale nearly snarls. _Not on my watch._

Aziraphale watches, sword hot in her hand, as Crowley opens her eyes and gasps, eyes wide and fully gold, not even bothering to look human anymore. Their gazes meet and Crowley is speaking, voice strained.

“It was nice knowing you.”

The sentence drops on Aziraphale’s shoulders like – like – like the end of the world, because this is Crowley saying goodbye. This is Crowley accepting her fate, accepting that Satan isn’t going to let her live, not after this. Aziraphale hears the sentence for what it is, hears the _I love you_ entwined with every syllable, and the knot in her chest tightens to an agonizing degree.

_No. You don’t get to give up like this._

She glances at her sword. “Do something,” she says, the order instinctive. “Do something or I’ll never speak to you again!”

Crowley blinks rapidly, looking up at her from where she’s kneeling, and after a beat throws her hands up in the air.

Aziraphale beams as she’s pulled into Crowley’s pocket dimension.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Aziraphale holds Crowley’s hand on the bus – reaches and is unafraid of whoever might be watching. Crowley’s hand is warm, her fingers long. Their hands slot together perfectly, easily, as if they’ve been doing this for thousands of years.

And maybe, on some level, they have. Because Aziraphale has pondered this exact moment hundreds of thousands of times, has imagined taking Crowley’s hand in hers for the sole purpose of wanting to.

She looks at Crowley, watches the emotions play out on her face, absorbs each twitch of her eyebrows and lips. Crowley doesn’t look at her. In fact, if she had to guess, she’d say that Crowley is holding as still as she can, not wanting to spook Aziraphale or perhaps not quite believing this is happening.

Aziraphale turns her head towards the window, meeting Crowley’s gaze in the reflection. Sees the want, the hope, the love, and she tightens her hand around Crowley’s, holding on for everything she’s worth.

She’s not letting go. Never again.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

“Come on, Angel,” Crowley says, lifting the duvet higher in clean invitation. “The world will be here tomorrow.”

Aziraphale hesitates, biting her cheek to make sure it isn’t a dream. It’s been years, after all, since she was permitted to touch Crowley with more than just her hands. Years since she allowed herself to give into the temptation.

“Yes,” she breathes, climbing underneath the covers, relishing in the warmth, “but will we?”

She tries not to think about it. Doesn’t want to think about it. If this is the last night she has with Crowley, then at least it will be with her demon in her arms. At least it will be side-by-side and not worlds apart.

As she settles in the bed Crowley inches further away, still facing her but curled as if expecting – something. Aziraphale squints at her, frowning. “Why are you so far away, Darling?”

The endearment slips off her tongue without her noticing, and Aziraphale is struck with the notion that it sounds different, somehow. The cadence lighter, her tongue curling around the word as if infinitely more precious. From darling to _Darling._

Her chest warms. Crowley _named_ her so long ago, and now, finally, she has _named_ her in return.

Crowley’s familiar strangled squeak pulls her from her reverie and she tuts.

“You can come closer if you want,” she says.

Crowley blinks at her, bottom lip between her teeth, frowning hard, and Aziraphale knows – there’s a question she wants to ask but can’t make herself do so.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks, voice gentle.

Crowley leans forward and, inch my inch, begins to shift closer. Aziraphale watches, breathless, heart in her throat. She’s mindful of her hands, keeping them tucked under the pillow, not wanting to startle Crowley by reaching for her. But as Crowley comes closer their noses nearly touch, and Aziraphale grips the pillow with everything she has.

“Angel?” Crowley whispers.

The ache in her voice makes Aziraphale’s heart stutter and she moves, placing a hand on Crowley’s waist to pull her in closer, shivering as she does so because this, oh _this –_ this touch, this warmth, this weight against her – she imagines it’s what the humans mean, when they come up for air after a too-long dive. She slides her hand up Crowley’s side and tangles it into her hair, and the garbled noise Crowley makes in response is _everything._

But there’s still a tense line running through Crowley and Aziraphale pulls away, biting the inside of her cheek. “Is this alright?”

“Don’t you dare move,” Crowley hisses, following Aziraphale’s slight movement, her eyes closing, and Aziraphale wants her closer, _closer,_ wants to wrap around her demon and never let go and so she does, entangling their legs as she run a hand up Crowley’s spine.

“I’ve got you,” she says as Crowley begins crying, her face hidden in Aziraphale’s neck, and Aziraphale’s eyes sting in response, a lump forming in her throat. “I’ve got you.”

And though Crowley falls asleep Aziraphale doesn’t, can’t, because if this is her last night with Crowley she’s going to savor it for all it’s worth – going to memorize the sound of Crowley’s sleepy snuffles, going to memorize the feeling of her hair. She’s going to stamp the heat of Crowley into her marrow, going to rewrite her veins with the imprint of Crowley’s body next to hers.

She doesn’t care about Heaven. Doesn’t care about holy or unholy, doesn’t care about any of it if this is what she gains instead. If she never steps foot in Heaven again, fine. If God decides to strip her of her Divinity, fine. So long as she has Crowley.

She presses a kiss to Crowley’s hair and watches over her through the night, through dawn, and beams at Crowley’s wide-eyed look in the morning.

“You stayed,” Crowley rasps, blinking away sleep and curling further into Aziraphale.

“I did.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Hell is nothing and everything that Aziraphale imagined. Dank. Dark. Overcrowded. Repulsive. A thousand other adjectives that she lists in her head as she’s lead to the judging room.

She plays her part perfectly even as Michael appears, even as she fills the tub with Holy Water, even as the knot in her chest grows white-hot and she’s forcing herself not to shake with the rage boiling in her, forcing her Divinity down as far as it will go and then deeper.

_How dare they. How dare they do this to Crowley._

She’s sharper, perhaps, than Crowley is. More threatening. But the more they fear Crowley the less likely they’ll be liable to mess with her, no matter what happens to her. So she flaunts and insinuates and doesn’t hold back on her verbal blows, watching in delight as the demons cower away from her as she flicks Holy Water towards them.

She hopes it’s enough.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

After all is said and done the world goes back to normal. Aziraphale spends her days reading and taking walks and generally going about her business as she did before, except this time Crowley is always with her, always taking her places, always wanting to move and go and never stop.

Aziraphale goes along, observing, catching the way Crowley never lets herself relax enough to sleep, catching the way she can’t sit still anymore, her knee always bouncing. She paces more, too, tight little circles that leave a sour taste in Aziraphale’s mouth. And her eyes are always flitting about, never staying still, never focusing.

It comes to a head one afternoon. Aziraphale had put her foot down, wanting to go through her collection to see what changes Adam had wrought, when she realizes Crowley isn’t moving, isn’t talking. She glances over from her desk and sees her demon sprawled out on the couch, drenched in sunlight, and smiles at the sight – or nearly does, but then she notices the pinched brows and the coiled tension and she frowns.

A nightmare, then. She’s not surprised, given the stress of the past few days. If she slept she’s sure she would have some of her own, but sleep has never interested her. Closing the tome in front of her she stands, stepping around the coffee table to wake Crowley up when Crowley _screams._

It sends Aziraphale on high alert and she’s slipped into a defensive stance instinctively, already casing the bookshop, her Divinity rising to the surface.

 _“Crowley!”_ she barks, harsher than she means to be.

Crowley snaps awake with a sob and Aziraphale only has a moment to praise herself for being in Crowley’s direct line of sight before her demon is launching herself at her. It’s more tackle than hug but Aziraphale doesn’t falter under the sudden weight, barely even moves except to wrap her arms around Crowley’s waist.

“Crowley, dear, are you alright?” she asks, slowly rubbing one hand up and down Crowley’s spine.

“Fine, Angel,” Crowley says, but she’s shaky in every way possible, from her voice to her breathing, and Aziraphale snorts.

“Very convincing, Darling,” she says, lifting Crowley into her arms with one swift movement. Crowley goes willingly, hiding her face in Aziraphale’s neck. Aziraphale sighs, pausing for a moment – should she put the kettle on? Get some biscuits? No. Best not. She’ll take her upstairs to her bed and calm her down, lay with her until she goes to sleep and then stay until she wakes.

When she begins moving towards the staircase Crowley startles, pulling away a bit. “Angel?”

Aziraphale tightens her grip, not wanting her to accidentally slip. “Yes, Darling?”

“What,” Crowley begins, “are you doing?”

Aziraphale glances down with a frown. Is it not obvious? “Taking you to my bed, of course.”

And while Aziraphale was expecting a few wordless sounds she can’t help the smile that plays on her lips when Crowley forces out: “Ngk – fsgd – what?”

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything as she ascends the stairs, keeping a good grip on Crowley as she does so. She performs a quick miracle, making sure all of the dust is gone and the sheets are fresh before opening the door. It’s a modest room, she knows, and rarely used. The bed is as large as the one in Crowley’s flat though there are far fewer blankets and pillows. There’s a well used desk in the corner that she only uses for calligraphy and other ink work, and lining the walls are bookshelves where she keeps her rarest, most fragile, most prized parts of her collection.

Crowley snorts. “You know, it’s usually the beds in bedrooms that get the most attention.”

Aziraphale shoots her a look. “Hush, you. Miracle up whatever you like and get comfortable. We’re going to bed.”

Crowley complies with a quick series of snaps. “We?” she squeaks.

“Yes, we,” she says, not bothering to look down at the pajamas Crowley has miracled her. She sets Crowley down on the edge of the bed, now covered in blankets and pillows of all different shapes, sizes, and softness. When she goes to move away Crowley tightens her grip on her shirt and Aziraphale feels that well-worn protective urge rear up again.

Aziraphale looks at Crowley, takes in her shaky grip and her too-bright eyes, the way she’s leaning forward as if to beg Aziraphale to stay. They’re close enough that Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s breath on her cheeks, can see every shade of gold in her eyes. Another half-inch and they’d be kissing. Another half-inch and she’d know what those lips would feel like on hers.

But Crowley jerks away and moves to the other side of the bed before Aziraphale can get her wits together. She sighs. Gets under the covers as Crowley busies herself with the arrangement of the blankets and pillows, and soon enough she settles too. Then they’re facing each other but too far apart for Aziraphale’s liking.

“You can come closer, Darling,” she says, reaching out a hand, her heart beating a steady rhythm of _closer closer closer._

Crowley’s breath hitches as she flinches. Aziraphale freezes, sucking in a sharp breath, staring at Crowley because she knows that look on her face but it’s been a millennium since it was aimed at her, been a millennium since Crowley was _wary_ of her, watching her as if waiting for a blow.

“Angel,” she says, voice strangled and low. “What do you want from me?”

Aziraphale blinks, confusion curling up in her chest. “What?”

Crowley shakes her head and there are tears, now, falling from her eyes and Aziraphale forces herself not to move, forces herself not to reach across the sudden gulf dividing them.

“I can’t, Angel,” Crowley says. “I can’t come closer because –” Crowley cuts herself off, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.

But Aziraphale doesn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence, not when it’s written so clearly across Crowley’s face. A lump begins forming in her throat but she swallows it down. How long has she known about Crowley’s love and done nothing? How many times has she turned Crowley away, given no quarter, because of her own fear and uncertainty?

The knot in her chest tightens. She’s always been a bit of a thinker, preferring to slowly puzzle things out before doing anything. She’ll ponder on something for weeks if it’s important enough, seeing the topic or problem from every angle until she finally decides her opinion on it. Often, though, she gets so lost in her thoughts that she forgets to act. Forgets to _do the thing._

Forgets to _tell_ Crowley things that she should have been telling Crowley for a long, long time.

“You’ve spent a lot of time waiting for me, haven’t you?” she says.

Crowley nods, still chewing on her lip, and Aziraphale scoots closer. She hesitates, then, because she has to get this _right._ She has to say what she means, for once, with no allusions and no metaphors.

“Darling,” she says, blinking back tears, “I’ve kept you waiting for so long.”

“Angel,” Crowley blurts, hands reaching out but stopping just before touching. “Angel, I didn’t mean –”

Aziraphale gives her a look and Crowley closes her mouth.

“Crowley,” she says, “you listen to me and you listen hard. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I kept you waiting. I’m sorry that you were always the brave one. I’m sorry that the only excuse I have is that I was afraid.” She pauses, thinking, _needing_ these to be the right words. “If you need me to be the brave one this time I can be,” she says. “I’m not afraid anymore, Crowley. I love you, Darling, and I’ve loved you for so long.”

A strangled keen falls from Crowley’s lips, tears slipping down her face as she blinks. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you,” she says again, voice fierce as it is soft, because she never wants Crowley to doubt again, never wants her _wonder._

She loves Crowley more than words. More than her Divinity. More than God. She loves Crowley so much that if she Fell right now she wouldn’t care.

Aziraphale doesn’t hesitate when Crowley reaches a trembling hand towards her – she tugs her demon closer, closer, until Crowley’s head is tucked under her chin and their legs are entangled and all she can feel is Crowley’s heart against her chest, Crowley’s breath against her neck, Crowley’s hands gripping the front of her nightgown as if it’s the only thing keeping her anchored. 

And there is nothing Aziraphale would not do for Crowley, nothing she wouldn’t sacrifice, no one she wouldn’t fight. If God Herself came down and told Aziraphale to give up her Divinity she would. A life without Divinity is nothing compared to a life without Crowley. If Heaven and Hell come for them again then she will gladly fight to a bitter end so long as Crowley lives.

Crowley sobs in her arms, jolting, and Aziraphale steadies her, rubbing a hand down her spine. She pulls her wings from their pocket dimension and wraps them around Crowley, sheltering her from the outside world like she’s done before, but this time there is no one watching. No one judging. Up in her bedroom there is no one but them, no judgment but their own, no rules but their own.

She’s been on Crowley’s side for a long, long time. It’s time she acts like it.

And when the sun rises Aziraphale shifts her wings so the sunlight doesn’t fall on them. Crowley sleeps on her chest, hands still gripping her nightgown but their grip has softened in the night, has gone lax, and Aziraphale is comforted that there’s at least some part of Crowley that knows she won’t ever leave her, even if her waking self might not yet fully believe it.

One day Crowley will never have to wonder again. She doesn’t care how long it takes, doesn’t care what she has to do.

And when Crowley does wake she smiles up at Aziraphale, a soft, tender thing that makes her melt, and Aziraphale smiles back.

“Good morning, love.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

It’s not an immediate fix but Aziraphale wasn’t expecting one. A millennia of rules, spoken and not, is hard to override, after all, and there are times when even Aziraphale forgets that she no longer has to look over her shoulder or Crowley’s for unwanted watchers. Crowley is hesitant in touching her but Aziraphale never is.

She reaches out, again and again, for Crowley. Hold her hand while they walk through the park and feed the ducks, while they go to restaurants, while they walk idly through the city. She makes it a point to cuddle Crowley when they’re on the couch, reading from whatever book Crowley has picked out. When Crowley brushes past her she doesn’t hesitate to kiss her – given their height difference she can’t reach her face but a kiss to the shoulder is given as freely as a kiss to the lips.

One day she walks past Crowley, not paying attention because she’s _finally_ gotten her hands on a manuscript she’s been searching for for years, and it takes her a moment to realize that Crowley has pressed a quick, chaste kiss to the top of her head as she passed.

She can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

Crowley begins growing her hair out and Aziraphale will spend hours brushing it, braiding it, and talking about nothing and everything. Often Crowley will ask about different recipes and the next night she’ll have cooked something, baked something, and there’ll be a streak of flour or sauce across her cheek.

It’s only when they move to the cottage that Aziraphale realizes the extent of Crowley’s anxiety. Now that they’re away from the bookshop, away from the place where Crowley thought she had _died,_ does Aziraphale see how much it had weighed on her.

She could shake herself, sometimes, for being so utterly oblivious to the most obvious things.

Now, though, Crowley has dirt under her nails from hours spent in the garden. There’s callouses on her hands and her freckles are wonderfully abundant. Aziraphale makes a point to kiss each and every one of them whenever she can, enjoying the way Crowley’s face scrunches up as she laughs.

And while Crowley has let herself loose in the garden Aziraphale has taken to baking. She enjoys beating bread dough and decorating cakes, enjoys the precision of it, enjoys the patience woven into it. And as her bread dough proves in the corner she makes some lemon tea, watching out the kitchen window as Crowley adjusts her floppy sunhat.

The kettle whistles and she calls for Crowley, and when she looks up Crowley is beaming at her.

“Be in soon,” Crowley says, waving, using a miracle to ensure Aziraphale sees her.

Aziraphale nods to herself as she finishes the tea and sets it aside. When she looks back out the window Crowley is talking to the plants, gesturing wildly, and Aziraphale follows the graceful arc oh her wrists as she does. The warmth ever present in her chest grows stronger and she beams at no one.

In a few minutes the tea will go cold because she'll be outside with Crowley, trying to convince her the the little blue flowers look fine and don't need to be yelled at. In a few minutes Crowley will try and scowl at her but won't be able to, the grin on her face making it impossible, and Aziraphale will kiss her under the dappled shade of her fruit trees. In a few minutes there will be things to do, things to make, things to see.

But right here, right now, Aziraphale leans against the countertop and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> someone please fucking explain to me why this fic is 20k and the fic it's *based on* is only 13k like. why?????? i don't get it????? me @ myself fucking explain bitch


End file.
